HMS Prince of Wales

HMS Prince of Wales was a British Royal Navy battleship that was commissioned on 19 January 1941. She was launched by Cammell Laird and Company, Ltd. at Birkenhead, Merseyside, western England on 3 May 1939, and the Prince of Wales was involved in several key actions of World War II. In May 1941, she took part in the Battle of the Denmark Strait, fighting against the German battleship Bismarck, and she escorted convoys in the Mediterranean before being sent to the Pacific Ocean as a part of Force Z. On 10 December 1941, HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse became the first capital ships to be sunk solely by air power on the open sea when they were sunk by Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service bombers in the South China Sea. Vice-Admiral Tom Phillips and Captain John Leach went down with the Prince of Wales.